Onslaught - a Complete Review

Onslaught is the name of the new Magic the Gathering expansion
set Wizards of the Coast hopes will keep us buying their
product. But, before you get out your wallet and pay those ever
increasing prices, you'll have to decide if it's worth it. Is
Onslaught a fresh, exciting new set or is it a boring retread of
old ideas? This review hopes to answer that question.

Let's take a look at the new mechanics first:

Cycling X (X, discard this card from your hand: Draw a card.
Play this ability only if this card is in your hand.)

Morph X (You may play this card face down as a 2/2 creature for
3. Turn it face up any time for its morph cost.)

Well, cycling is obviously _not_ a new mechanic. It was first
seen in the Urza block and it didn't really make much of a
splash there, except for a short-lived deck based around
Fluctuator. If I remember it correctly, the deck had four
Fluctuators, a Lotus Petal, a Dark Ritual and a Haunting Misery.
The rest were cycling cards, most of which were creatures and a
few lands. A good draw consisted of a Fluctuator, a Blasted
Landscape (the only cycling land that didn't come into play
tapped) and any other land. On the second turn you could play
the Blasted Landscape, cast the Fluctuator and cycle through
your whole deck. At that point you could play the Petal, sac it
to play the Dark Ritual and use the mana to cast Haunting Misery
on your opponent for 20+ damage, depending on the number of
creatures in your graveyard. A second turn win isn't bad and
it's not even too hard to pull off. Unsurprisingly, three of
these cards have been banned since, including the
Fluctuator.

Morph doesn't sound very exciting, but then again, neither did
threshold, which nevertheless made for some very fun tactical
games. The problem with Morph, though, is that it gives people
the option to cheat by playing some excess lands as 2/2
creatures. Of course you'll find out eventually, but you do
have to make it a point to check every face-down creature when
the game is over. That could get annoying, especially against
opponents who are in a rush to get to the next game.

On the other hand, Morph opens up some interesting
possibilities. For one, you can use a card like Flicker to turn
over a big creature without having to pay its morph cost. Note,
though, that phasing it out won't work, because it'll stay
faced-down when it phases back in. The morph mechanic is also
going to have an impact on creature removal. Do you Shock the
2/2 and hope it doesn't turn into a 3/3 or do you Terror it and
hope it doesn't turn out to be black? The more morph creatures
in Onslaught and subsequent expansions, the trickier it's going
to be to play with removal.

As usual, the spoiler this review is based on is the one from
MTGNews.com. So blame any inaccuracies in the spoilers on them,
please! Any problems in the review itself, like when I miss
some obvious combo that completely breaks the card, however, are
caused by line noise between your computer and this
website...

Every card will be rated on a five point scale. This scale
represents the estimated amount of fun that can be had with that
particular card. Although strong cards tend to be more fun and
thus score higher, don't be surprised to find some very strong
cards scoring low, because they're just _too_ strong.

Conclusion

First, let's look at the stats:

1 star : 35

2 stars: 69

3 stars: 97

4 stars: 103

5 stars: 26

As usual, most of the cards fall in the 3 or 4 stars category.
Still, there are a lot of cards in Onslaught I could have done
without. There are a lot of overcosted commons, filler for
sealed and draft, but inferior for any constructed formats.

Another problem that isn't new, but is becoming more and more
prevalent, is that of the must-have rares. Almost any card that
can swing the game in your favor these days is a rare. That's
understandable from a sealed deck point of view, as you don't
want players to have too many I-win cards, but for casual play
it can be a disaster. If you don't want to spend as much money
on your hobby as your friends do, you'll end up with inferior
and, more importantly, boring decks. There are only so many
theme decks you can make with the Onslaught creatures and they
mostly build themselves.

I'm not crazy about the continued printing of "fixed" older
cards. It's starting to feel as if the designers ran out
of ideas after the first few sets and are now mostly just
recycling and combining old ideas. Even the morph mechanic,
although it promises to make creature combat a lot more
interesting and bluffing a much bigger part of the game, is
based on old cards like Camouflage and Illusionary Mask.

The decline of the flavor text quality hasn't stopped yet.
I've noticed only a few that managed to add flavor to a
card, most just took it away. We all know already that goblins
are stupid, elves are tree-huggers, wizards are clever, clerics
are pious and zombies are dead. The problem is that the design
team starts with a card, notices there's room for flavor text on
it and then tries to think of something fitting. Most of the
time, that ends up being some quote from or about the creature
on the card or, if it's a spell, about the effects of the spell.
There are only so many ways you can call someone brave, strong
or scary.

Well, that's enough criticism from me. On the positive side,
the set as a whole looks like it'll be fun to play with. The
creature themes are a bit heavy-handed, but there should be
enough clerics, soldiers, wizards, birds, zombies, goblins,
beasts and elves in older sets to give these theme decks some
variety in casual play.

Cycling isn't all that exciting, but it's a solid extra option.
Only time will tell how much fun morph turns out to be. I
expect it to make creature combat a lot more interesting, but it
may just turn out to make the game too random if you keep having
to guess which creatures you have to block and which ones you
can safely let through.

In the end, I'll be buying a box of Onslaught in spite of all
my criticism. And that's what counts, right?

For the first time ever, all the existing Magic the Gathering cards are recorded in a single 720 page book. With over 7,200 card pictures, The Complete Encyclopedia of Magic the Gathering is a must for any collector, trader and art-admirer.

Onslaught continues the story of Kamahl, who struggles to cope with what it means to be a druid. At the same time, he has to help his sister, Jeska, who has been transformed into Phage, a being that can kill with a mere touch. At the same time Ixidor, an illusionist with the ability to shape reality is out to kill Phage for killing his one true love. Who will find her first?